Two assumptions have long been the Achilles’ heel of cosmological proofs: the principle of sufficient reason, and the claim to be able to distinguish personal and non-personal entities. In this paper, I develop a novel cosmological argument that does not depend on these principles. Starting from a premise inspired by Armstrong’s metaphysics, I establish the existence of at least one necessary entity. This conclusion obtains even if the existence of contingent entities admits no cause, reason, ground or explanation. Then, building on Wright’s account of epistemic entitlement, I argue that we are entitled to identify at least one necessary entity as God, even if we cannot ultimately prove whether such an entity is personal.
Alessio Montagner (Thu,) studied this question.